All about The Chronicle’s star ratings

At Bar Agricole the cocktails went from $9 to $10 since the recent review. Liz Hafalia/San Francisco Chronicle

Two recent visits to restaurants I reviewed earlier this fall made me stop and think about The Chronicle’s star ratings, which many people don’t understand. At times it even confuses me.

At Prospect, where the most expensive dish was $28 when I reviewed it in September, there’s now a veal chop for $42. While the prices of what I ate haven’t gone up, seeing something break the $40 mark made me think about the quality/value ratio. If overall prices were to head into the $30 range, would it still rate 3.5 stars for food?

This weekend I stopped by for a cocktail at Bar Agricole. When I reviewed it three weeks ago the signature cocktails were $9. Now they’re $10. At the time I gave the restaurant three stars, but again it brought up the question of quality/value ratio and how it’s reflected in the star rating.

It’s not an exact formula, of course, and I don’t explain how it’s done often enough. Anytime you see an overall rating of three stars — which means the restaurant is excellent and a worthy destination — the rating also needs to be viewed through the price lens. For example, if the food at Bar Agricole were the price of what you’d pay at Gary Danko, would it still rate three stars? Probably not.

Another related issue I’ve confronted recently is that some readers think a 2.5-star rating is my fallback. They assume that when I give that rating, it’s lukewarm praise and the restaurant isn’t really that good, even though 2.5 stars is considered “very good.” What some fail to realize is that in the Sunday newspaper I concentrate on destination restaurants, those places that would likely attract diners from all over the Bay Area. If it’s a two-star neighborhood spot, I probably wouldn’t review it. Recently, for example, I went to Zut and Locanda Da Eva in Berkeley, and decided that while they might be good places to visit if you lived in the area, they weren’t worth a Sunday review, particularly with the number of restaurants opening lately.

Generally if a place isn’t going to rate 2.5 stars, I probably won’t review it. However, if a restaurant offers an unusual concept, such as Hog and Rocks, which I reviewed Sunday, or if it’s a place that’s received a lot of publicity before opening, such as Cafe Des Amis, I’ll review the restaurant regardless of the star ratings.